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Coretta Scott King has died

RIP Coretta. You and your husband helped change a nation and your legacy will live on forever.

Coretta Scott King dies
Wife of civil rights leader devoted life to his legacy

Tuesday, January 31, 2006; Posted: 9:23 a.m. EST (14:23 GMT)

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Coretta Scott King, the widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., died Monday night in California, according to a former aide and a public relations firm representing the family.

Coretta King, 78, suffered a stroke and a mild heart attack last August. She was receiving further medical treatment in California in her rehabilitation.

"This is a very sad hour," U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the Democrat from Georgia, told CNN on Tuesday.

"She was the glue. Long before she met and married Martin Luther King Jr. she was an activist," he said. (Watch how she balanced motherhood and working in the movement -- 3:42)

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a family friend, described her as a "matriarch of the movement, a patriot of all that America stands for," in an interview with CNN affiliate WSB-TV in Atlanta.

On January 14, King made a surprise appearance in Atlanta at a Salute to Greatness dinner as part of the Martin Luther King Day celebrations, receiving a standing ovation as she waved at the crowd.

She did not speak at the event and was in a wheelchair.

Born in Marion, Alabama, on April 27, 1927, Coretta Scott graduated as valedictorian of her high school class and attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She received a B.A. in music and education and then studied concert singing at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. She got a degree in voice and violin, according to her official biography.

While there, she met a theology student at Boston University, Martin Luther King Jr. They married on June 18, 1953, in her hometown of Marion.

As the young pastor began his civil rights work in Montgomery, Alabama, Coretta Scott King worked closely with him, organizing marches and sit-ins at segregated restaurants while raising their four children: Yolanda Denise, Martin Luther III, Dexter Scott and Bernice Albertine.

She also performed in "Freedom Concerts," singing and reading poetry to raise money for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization which Dr. King led as its first president.

The family endured the beating, stabbing and jailing of the civil rights leader, and their house was bombed.

After an assassin's bullet killed her husband in Memphis in 1968, Coretta Scott King turned her grief into the nurturing of her husband's legacy. She founded the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, a memorial to her husband's work and dream.

She spoke out "on behalf of racial and economic justice, women's and children's rights, gay and lesbian dignity, religious freedom, the needs of the poor and homeless, full-employment, health care, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament and ecological sanity," her biography on The King Center's Web site said.

"She wore her grief with dignity," said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights leader. "She moved quietly but forcefully into the fray. She stood for peace in the midst of turmoil."

"What we are dealing with here, is a complete lack of respect for the law" - Jackie Gleason, Smokey and the Bandit

Your journey has ended dear friend, it's time to rest and let us do your work.

"Jesus, that fucker just crawled out of his hen house that was destroyed by the Alabama tornados. Fucking 280mph plus winds sucked the gleam off this bitch and passed it on to a bird in Rhoad Island." - Hurricane Halen 5/3/11 (about my birthday chicken from seenbad)

This makes me sick- dems getting political at a funeral!

LITHONIA, Georgia (Reuters) - Speakers took a rare opportunity to criticize U.S. President George W. Bush's policies to his face at the funeral on Tuesday of Coretta Scott King, widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil-rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery and former President Jimmy Carter cited Mrs. King's legacy as a leader in her own right and advocate of nonviolence as they launched barbs over the Iraq war, government social policies and Bush's domestic eavesdropping program.

Bush sat watching the long service before an audience of 10,000 including politicians, civil rights leaders and entertainers at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, and a national cable television audience.

Lowery, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King helped found in 1957, gave a playful reading of a poem in eulogy of Mrs. King.

"She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war / She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar," he said.

"We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there / But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here / Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor."

The mourners gave a standing ovation. Bush's reaction could not be seen on the television coverage, but after Lowery finished speaking, the president shook his hand and laughed.

Mrs. King, seen by many as the "first lady" of the American civil rights movement, died last week in a Mexican alternative health clinic at the age of 78, after complications from ovarian cancer and a recent stroke and heart attack.

Bush, speaking before his critics, said, "By going forward with a strong and forgiving heart, Coretta Scott King not only secured her husband's legacy, she built her own."

With Washington debating the legality of Bush's domestic eavesdropping on Americans suspected of al Qaeda ties, Carter also drew applause with pointed comments on federal efforts to spy on the Kings.

"It was difficult for them personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated, and they became the targets of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance," he said.

Speaking later, Bush's father, former President George Bush, broke any tension by recalling his own meetings as president with Lowery and gave a score: "Lowery 21, Bush 3, it wasn't a fair fight."

Former President Bill Clinton, a favorite among mainstream civil rights leaders, was able to offer a teasing hint of the possible presidential candidacy of his wife, New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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